An Exploration Of Female Protagonists’ Subjectivity In Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides,Lost In Translation And Marie Antoinette

In American society,how to view women objectively and equally is always a problem that arouses people’s attention.As a significant outlet for culture,Hollywood films dominated by male directors feature a sexualized "male gaze" for so long,under which female bodies are over-displayed and female is portrayed as"to-be-looked-at-ness".Spreading a notion of objectifying women,such a depiction does harm to improving women’s social status.As a woman director,Sofia Coppola shows her attention to female inner world and subjectivity in her directed films.Among her six films,The Virgin Suicides,Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette that are featured with female protagonists present three different women’s pursuit of independent life,and trigger female audience’s sympathy and identification.In that sense,the three films give us a glimpse of an alternative perspective that differs from male gaze.The perspective is female,highlighting female subjectivity.Accordingly,the thesis takes the perspective of "female gaze".Getting inspiration from Laura Mulvey’s "desire driven by curiosity",and referring to Lisa French’s and Jill Soloway’s definition of "female gaze",the thesis frames "female gaze" from three dimensions to explore women’s subjectivity in details.Firstly,the female gaze is to express women’s desire by presenting emotions,voices,and perspectives.Body portrayal is to convey emotions.Secondly,the audience could feel what women as objects of gazers feel.Last but not the least,women can return gaze as subjects,showing subjectivity.To be specific,their returning gaze is not a power reversal.Based on analysis of Sofia Coppola’s first three films from the above three dimensions,the thesis reveals female gaze by Coppola,and explores female protagonists’ subjectivity on family,social and institutional levels,which offers us a way of understanding women and viewing women objectively and respectively.Lux in The Virgin Suicides hopes to get rid of Catholic parents’ control by showing desire for male attention and nature,but boys’objectifying look and mother’s surveillance make her disappointed and sorrowful.As a subject,she finally declares her subjectivity by having free sex and committing suicide.Charlotte in Lost in Translation desires a balance between marriage and career,but she is confused and upset due to her husband’s continual critique and her own failure to have a successful career.She finally starts a crazy and free journey of self-exploration and returns with hope as well as courage.Marie in Marie Antoinette aims to live an individual life differing from alienated women.Meanwhile,she suffers from constraints of political institutions and strict rituals.In the end,she successfully challenges institutions at that time by pursuing true love and building a paradise of womanhood where she is free.